Video: Ron Ousky on Hiring A Family-Focused Divorce Lawyer
When determining which attorney to hire for your divorce, you may be tempted to believe that your best option is to hire an overly-aggressive lawyer. But is that truly going to benefit you and your family? Do you want to make your spouse “the enemy” and make your children collateral damage? Well, there is another option. Instead, you can hire a family-focused divorce lawyer.
In the video below, Minnesota collaborative attorney Ron Ousky, former president of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, discusses, among other things, why you should consider hiring a family-focused divorce lawyer.
Why A Family-Focused Divorce Lawyer?
Below is a partial transcript of the pertinent part of Ron’s comments:
Sometimes clients will feel tempted to hire an “aggressive” lawyer not because they want to, but because they think their spouse will want to. And there is this sense of fear which says, “I’m going to fight fire with fire.” Well, I’m not sure that is a particularly good strategy even in a court process.
But think of collaborative as being the opposite of that. A spouse could say, “Look, I will hire a lawyer who is family-focused and centered on mutual needs and will work collaboratively if you agree to do the same.” And so clients get lawyers working in a similar method, advocating for them but using different advocacy strategies that help the clients get better outcomes.
I am in full agreement with Ron, and I strongly believe that most divorcing families would benefit if both spouses hired collaborative attorneys. A collaborative attorneys is a family-focused divorce lawyer who is specially trained to help spousee reach out-of-court agreements without all of the acrimony, expense, and time of the traditional court-based divorce process. Collaborative attorneys’ goal is to help clients move forward with their lives as privately, respectfully, and cost-effectively as possible and with as little damage to themselves or their kids as possible.
Adam B. Cordover and Ron Ousky are both co-trainers and members of the Peacemaking Practice Trainers. Adam B. Cordover is also co-editor, along with Forrest (Woody) Mosten, of an upcoming American Bar Association book on Building A Successful Collaborative Family Law Practice, a book for with Ron Ousky is a contributing author.
